Deranged Christian Orthodoxy

 “Are you doing the dishes in God’s strength? Or are you doing them in your own strength?"      I heard this in a sermon a while ago. It stuck with me (clearly), but for all the wrong reasons. See I came out of the Charismatic movement where “the green bean” theory of prayer was a real danger. What’s “the green bean” theory of prayer? It’s not original to me, though I can’t properly site who I heard it from because I don’t remember.      Basically the story goes that a college kid decided he would not take any action without first praying and waiting for the leading of God’s Spirit for an answer. Things went well for a day or two, until one day in the cafeteria he came to a choice between green beans or peas as a vegetable. He asked God which one he should choose. There was no answer. He asked again. Nothing. No sense of divine guidance or strong urge in either direction. And so, holding up the line, this young man stood there frozen in line having c...

     So in writing about “ A Worthless Expression ” (“Do it in God’s strength, not yours”), I had originally intended to include a short aside about this exception that most Christians allow to work alongside the nonsensical idea of “Doing something in God’s strength” (follow this link to that post for that argument). It quickly became a very large hiatus from the main point of that article, so I separated it out here.      I believe that Christianity at large has absorbed secular notions of family planning without even realizing it. Not to pick on Jared Longshore as he only expresses what everyone already believes, but this brief video  summarizes exactly how a majority of Christians justify family planning (ie, determining if/when you should have children). If there is anything I view as a legitimate application of “doing something in my own strength rather than God’s,” it is this issue. Yet this is the one issue where it is culturally acceptable t...